Chapter 15 - Defoe and Censorship

Summary

This chapter takes some of Defoe’s satirical poems and pamphlets, including The True-Born Englishman (1701), The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters (1702), and A Hymn to the Pillory (1703), as starting points for a brief study in how Defoe’s writing and experiences reflected disputes over what today we would call matters of censorship or suppression of thought. Included here is an examination of the slippery concept of ’seditious libel’ in the period, Defoe’s sense of what ’freedom of speech’ and ’freedom of the press’ entailed or should entail, and how Defoe’s involvement in party politics and political controversy shaped his thoughts on the roles of the state and the courts in regulating political and religious expression.